A Luger in .45 ACP

By Patrick Sweeney

There are things you read and think, I’ll never get to do that. Such as drive 200 miles per hour in a race car; date a supermodel; or perhaps shoot a rare and historically significant firearm. For me, I recently checked one of those three off my bucket list.

Back in the first decade of the 20th century, the U.S. Army was playing catch-­up. It had finally gotten a modern service rifle in the M1903 Springfield and was in the process of selecting a new service sidearm. The U.S. wouldn’t be up to the rest of the world in machine guns until after the Great War, but in that first decade machine guns were still not seen as something other than light artillery. The U.S. Cavalry, however, wanted a new sidearm, and they, by God, were going to get one in .45 — even if they had to cook the books to get it.

This is why Georg Luger made a pistol in .45 ACP. (Well, five or six of them, if we can believe the records.) One was tested to destruction, one was retained …Read the Rest

Source:: Guns and Ammo